


Proposals and Language Barriers

by ozsia



Series: Bonding Ties: Awakening Support Convos [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Characters of Colour, Cultural Differences, Established Relationship, F/M, Language Barrier, Languages, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 14:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14058828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozsia/pseuds/ozsia
Summary: ‘Sully, darling,’ Maribelle says as she lowers her teacup primly. ‘I know you take schadenfreude delight in refusing to follow the natural order of things -’‘Don’t go talkin’ like that since you ain’t no better.’Wherein Sully does the proposing.





	1. Chapter 1

Maribelle, daughter of Lord Althalos had been a “playmate” to Sully when her parents had tried encouraging her out of mock fights with the prince and other blue bloods, and into more natural more ladylike passed times. It hadn’t worked but as a result they’d known each other for a number of years and although they didn’t exactly _like_ one another, they had learnt to have each other’s backs. So Sully was always confident in turning to Maribelle even if they tended to disagree. 

‘There are _rules_ to these things, Sully,’ Maribelle told her in agitation after Sully had come to her. Her eyes were narrowed but there was a worried tilt to those painted lips that Sully didn’t need, sat in the woman’s pristine room at the castle with a tea set in-between them.

‘Look, I’m not ‘ere for your advice. Alright, Mari?’ Even so, Sully’s stomach is flipping in nerves though she tries not to let that discourage her. ‘Can’t you just help me pick out a ring?’ 

A ring - _the_ ring, is what had brought her here while Robin was buried in the library trying to gather enough of the right sort of document to shove under the noses of the court, to allow Chrom to marry Olivia, despite her origin and the lack of proper courtship between them. 

Maribelle sighs, pinching her brow in that ladylike way of her’s that Sully tries not to envy. It wasn’t something she wanted for herself. She’d dropped out of the Pegasus Knights, cut off her hair, destroyed a suitor and broken her mother’s heart. Sully had chosen her path.

‘Sully, darling,’ Maribelle says as she lowers her teacup primly. ‘I know you take schadenfreude delight in refusing to follow the natural order of things -’

‘Don’t go talkin’ like that since you ain’t no better.’ Maribelle’s dream of being the first lady Lord Justice would be far more outrageous than Sully, denying the “normal” reality that she’d been born into.

Maribelle barely shifts, she’s as hard as steel. Sully almost feels sorry for what’s coming to everyone who looks down on Maribelle. She’s going to set their capital on fire. ‘Yes, yes. Alright,’ Maribelle dismisses because she knows better than to deny it with Sully. They knew each other too well. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand where you’re trying to go with this.’

‘Well, what does offering a ring to someone mean to you?’ Sully demands self-consciously. 

‘ _You_ came to me, Sully,’ Maribelle stated tightly with that usual restraint of hers. ‘And I do not appreciate your attitude.’ 

Sully grinds her teeth but tries to breathe through her nose. ‘I want to propose.’

‘Have you asked your parents about this?’ Maribelle asks lightly. 

‘They’ve met him.’ Sully shrugs and it had - been better than what she’d expected. Her father had been a general in King Fridolin’s army during the Blood Wars and carried a lot of guilt but also a lot of animosity against the Plegian people. When Sully had had introduced Robin to her family; Robin with his dark skin and light hair and bejewelled eyes, it’d been nerve-racking and tense. Tense but other than a few probing questions, it’d had fine. Or, it could have at least gone worse. 

‘And I assume they approve?’ The direction of this meeting was changing and Sully didn’t like it but bit her tongue. This was her asking for a favour and if she snapped now, it’d take forever to approach this again.

‘Ma cried.’ She’d actually taken Sully aside, relief clear as day on her face and tears glimmering in her eyes. She’d said that with Sully’s current reputation that she’d been terrified that Sully would be forever alone, stuck as the suit of armour she wore. Ma had been taken with Robin, origin notwithstanding, he was intelligence and sensitive. He took her as she was and didn’t try to change her.

‘I can only assume they were happy tears,’ Maribelle states, unimpressed. ‘I understand that Robin’s doesn’t mind you eccentricities, darling, but this is a fair bit different to the things he allows you to get away with -’

‘We’ve had sex.’ The admittance was perhaps ill-timed. Maribelle had just taken a sip from her cup and her splutter was more flustered then Sully’d seen in some time. She choked, gasping for her handkerchief to cough into as she stares at Sully like she’d grown a second head. It wouldn’t be the first time today.

‘Excuse you -’

‘During the war,’ Sully clarifies and it cuts straight into whatever tirade that Maribelle was about to launch into it. ‘We didn’t just jump into the sack either. It weren’t a rumble in the sheets or anything. We’d been seein’ each other for awhile and…it was after I’d nearly lost him.’ 

Maribelle’s lips tighten and thin as her hands tighten around her cup until she releases the delicate thing. Robin and Maribelle had started off on rocky terms (though everyone did with Maribelle,) but they’d grown quite a bit closer by the time of the incident and she’d been the one healer to reach him, sword jutting out of his back and a hysterical Chrom to push away. 

‘…I suppose it would be an understandable reaction to the situation,’ Maribelle allows which was almost more than Sully thought she’d get. Maribelle was all for knocking down walls but she could be as seeped in tradition as the gentry she was so critical of. 

‘I waited for him to be recovered before jumping on him,’ Sully assured though she’d been so keyed up during the time. ‘And…I was gonna…’ 

An eyebrow raises up on Maribelle’s forehead. ‘You were going to, what?’ 

‘Never yer mind. He just…realised how uncomfortable I was and didn’t mind…being on the bottom.’ 

Sully had been prepared to let Robin do what he wanted, to do what she’d heard women did in bed by the men in camp, but they were still groping each other with exploring hands and kissing when Robin pulled back. He’d been frowning, his lips pulled down in discontentment. _‘Something wrong, birdie?’_ Sully had asked self-consciously because she’d always had vague suspicions that Robin had been physically with someone before, especially since Plegia was far freer with that then Ylisse was. Not that she’d ever asked, he wouldn’t know.

_‘Are you comfortable like this? You…don’t seem like yourself,’_ Robin had enquired right on back as he shifted to sit back and Sully had been hopeless but to follow him up. 

‘ _I…’_

 _‘Be honest with me a moment, love,’_ Robin said, smoothing a hand against her cheek. It trembled a bit but he’d been unsteady since getting lanced and he’d yet to regain his colour, despite the steady supply protein potions that got stuffed down down his throat. _‘Are you comfortable with this position?’_

Sully let out a frustrated sigh. _‘And what’re ya gonna do if I’m not?’_

Since they were on a cot, it was easy for Robin to pull Sully on top of him and have it not matter in the grand scheme of things. She’d startled, shifting automatically to straddle his hips. Looking down on him like this, hair splayed against the blankets, shirt rolled up, reddening lips - Robin had been thoroughly debauched.

_‘I don’t mind it like this if you’d prefer it,’_ Robin had stated lightly, eyes half-mast but direct as he stared up at her.

Sully feels the burning in her cheeks. ‘He…didn’t care that I couldn’t a delicate flower for him.’ He’d been up for anything she’d wanted to do, didn’t care about bringing convention to their bed. Robin hadn’t wanted her to kneel, hadn’t had any aspirations of her submission. In their dynamic, he hadn’t expected her to be something she wasn’t and was fine with doing the things she couldn’t.

‘Yes, I suppose he knew better than to expect that of you,’ Maribelle coughs in that type of coyness she reveals like the light peaking over the horizon. There’s a cheekiness to her that few people know to look out for, so when she sits forward Sully knows to expect it. ‘Was he…satisfactory?’ 

Embarrassment heats her but Sully still smiles crookedly. She would not make a big deal of this, it wouldn’t be a topic she flinched away from like an immature little girl. ‘He was gentle.’ Touched her like she was precious. He’d been quiet though, the small noises of contentment he’d let escape, was something Sully had devoted herself to encouraging.

Maribelle softens. ‘Yes.’ She inclines her head, the lips tilting up. ‘That sounds about right.’ 

‘So,’ Sully tries to get back on track once the silence starts to stretch out in front of them and Maribelle’s contemplation distracts. ‘The ring? I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought it was a bad idea.’ 

Reluctance hardens Maribelle again. ‘I do understand that, Sully. I just fear the reaction from either response Robin should give. Do you not think it will open him up to ridicule?’

Sully feels herself tense. ‘Too late for that.’

‘…I know that there have been some whispers on his origin -’

Sully shakes her head. ‘Robin’s used to hearing wyvern shit. I’m used to it too, rubbish about his manhood and how he must be the girl in the relationship - he’s…I’ve been ready to flatten a few but Robin’s always stopped me.’

‘Then why encourage it?’ Maribelle asks in exasperation. 

‘Because they don’t have a place in our bed!’ Sully exclaims as she thumps her hands against the table in anger. ‘It’s no ones businesses but ours and I really want to buy Robin a ring, so will you help me or not?’ 

‘…I shall help you.’ 

They end up going to the market and Maribelle turns her nose up to the first jew jewellery stalls they reach. They’d all looked fine to Sully but then that’s why she’d wanted Maribelle; say what you wanted about her but she knew style even if everything she was a bit too frilly for Sully. 

Eventually they came across a stall with an elder manning it. A cursory eye and Maryville nodded and allowed Sully to come forward to examine the cushions of rings that donned the left side of the table. 

‘That one,’ Sully says. 

Maribelle looks over her shoulder. ‘Yes. That’d do it.’ 

* * *

Robin is slumped over the documents that are scattered around his desk, cloak shrugged off and discarded in the corner of the seat. He was cradling his head in his hands, shoulders rounded in tension; a headache, Sully recognised from their time together.

She still entered the office, slow and quiet as she closed the door. This room had been all but empty when Chrom had given it to Robin, with the title of advisor and a mountain of things to do. Since they’d been back at the castle it was like it had been raining books in here. (Robin had a love-hate relationship with the records keeper.)

Sully glances at the guest chair and moves a pile of books off of the cushion and onto the floor next to it, careful not to disturb the order or any of the other stacks scattered around. Sumia had tripped over in here once and Robin had had a heart attack when his “organisation” was destroyed. It’d put him behind _weeks_.

‘You hangin’ in there birdie?’ Sully asks as she settles into the chair.

A tired smile spreads across Robin’s mouth as one arm drops to the desk while the other continues to prop him up. ‘Just about,’ he replies with warmth in his tone, eyes settling onto her face as he gazes at her gently. ‘I think - I think Chrom and Olivia will be getting married in the next few weeks.’

Relieve eases the creases in his face. He’d been so stressed trying to get this right for Chrom that he’d been strung tighter than a violin string. Chrom hadn’t been that helpful in that regard either though the Captain hadn’t tired to explicably raise Robin’s blood pressure. ‘Oh?’ she grins, at hearing the good news. 

‘I managed to find a loophole that’d been put into the Code of Conduct when the Hero King wished to marry Talys’ Heart,’ Robin explains lightly. He got quiet after completing a task, all soft and Sully’d be lying if she said she didn’t like it. 

‘Good ole’ Marth,’ she says even though she feels distracted with the ring burning a whole in her side. Sully could usually concentrate on Robin’s words even if she didn’t always understand them; she enjoyed the cadence of his voice. 

‘It’ll take some arguing,’ Robin concedes with a brief twist of his lips that is quick to smooth over. He wasn’t much keen on the Council and they of him. Robin had been fighting with them since he’d first arrived at Ylisse and although Sully enjoyed seeing someone put them in their place, it exhausted him. ‘But we’ll manage it. It’s legal and Chrom is king. His marriage is outside the realm of their authority, besides.’ 

‘I’d pay good coin to see you tell them that,’ Sully states through her anxiety.

Robin snorts as absentmindedly starts to rub at his temple like the very thought of them is giving him one of his headaches. ‘You and every other Shepherd,’ he mutters. There was that, though he’d brought it upon himself when he’d rebuked Lord Saniel at their celebratory dance just days ago. The altercation had been loud though he hadn’t needed to raise his voice. The lord had left with his tail between his legs. 

This wasn’t aiding the atmosphere though. She leaned over the desk, careful not to nudge or crush anything as she takes Robin’s free hand. ‘Well, all that will be over soon.’ Sully smiles, watching as Robin interlinks their fingers of clashing colours. The darkness of his skin against her own had always fascinated her to look at. ‘We can have more time to ourselves.’ 

Robin’s face warms. ‘Excluding another disaster,’ he agrees with a wary grin. 

Sully snorts. ‘The Captain can deal with it,’ she replies and tightens her grip on Robin’s fingers. ‘He’s been taking you from our bed enough.’ 

Robin snorts himself. ‘Isn’t his intention.’

‘Good. I might just start gettin’ jealous,’ Sully jests though Chrom had sort of been hogging Robin, it wasn’t anything she wasn’t prepared for. She’d been introduced to Robin at his very beginning and knew his work ethic and how he and Chrom were like.

‘Hah…’ Robin huffs before he becomes more solemn. ‘I am sorry, that I’ve been so bogged down. There’s just been so much to do, with Chrom and Olivia, the budgets and the write up with Ferox-’

‘Robin, _breathe,’_ Sully interrupts before he can drown himself in words. ‘I get it. You’ve been gettin’ everythin’ up off the ground.’

His thumb smooths over the back of her hand. ‘My duties will lessen now, we can start to focus on other things…us.’ He’s always cautious about discussing them; Sully’d propositioned him, first because everyone had known that there’d been something there but Robin hadn’t been able to ask. His self-esteem was dirt low but Silly hadn’t wanted to wait; she’d been going out of her mind, so she’d instigated. 

Nothing had really changed in that respect. However much he wanted, Robin wasn’t really able to ask for anything. He didn’t have the confidence. It aggravated her sometimes because he was a good man, who didn’t need his insecurities. He never thought he was good enough which was absolute pegasus dung. 

‘About that,’ Sully begins slowly. ‘About us…’

Robin tenses and Sully reflects as us mentally kicks herself, that perhaps that wasn’t the way to begin. But how, exactly, did you do this? Did she just spit it out? She…couldn’t really do ceremony; they never had. Robin was a bit too practical for any of that, but he was also…sentimental.

‘Wait, no…that sounds wrong.’ Sully tries not to wince at how pale Robin suddenly seems.

‘I…you’re not -’ Robin swallows and releases her hands, withdrawing from her. If he’d been wearing his cloak, Sully was sure he’d been reaching for his hood. (Everyone that they knew had come to hate it.)

‘I want to marry,’ Sully rushes to say before she can mess this up anymore with Robin who’s most likely to jump to the worst case scenario first. ‘I want to marry _you.’_

Robin’s eyes widen. ‘Oh,’ he breathes.

Sully clears her throat awkwardly, she wasn’t good at this kind of thing. She shifted, and pulled the pouch out from the pocket of her riding trousers. She sets it carefully in-between them and watches as he stares at it until he hesitantly reaches out to pick it up. He rests it in his palm, and glances up at her before plucking at the string tying it together. 

Robin upends the context into his other hand and the ring she’d chosen comes tumbling out. ‘This…’ he stutters, very still as he stares and - stares. Sully’s stomach is knotting like it is one of Maribelle’s attempts at knitting. ‘This is an…engagement ring?’ he asks for confirmation. 

Sully swallows. ‘For you… for us, if - you want,’ she offers. ‘I’m not so good at…talking about how I feel. You know that, I don’t want to get all sappy on you. But I love ya and…’ Robin’s silence was just starting to get to her when he looked back up to her, a dazzling smile on his lips.

He gives her back the ring with his right and leaves his left outstretched between them. ‘The one who gives the ring traditionally puts it on.’ 

‘Damn sentimental lug,’ Sully mutters with a thick voice. She swallows around the lump and does so, fitting the thin band on Robin’s promise finger.Sully admires the colour of the metal against the colour of his skin. 

Robin leans forward to kiss Sully’s temple. ‘Yo también te amo, Soiree.’

Sully feels her cheeks heat, knowing just enough of Plegian to recognise what he was saying to her. 

_I love you, too._


	2. Chapter 2

His head hits Sully’s shoulder with a deadweight that occurred from exhaustion, fuelled through nights of work and days of duty. It was battling headaches and fatigue and carrying on through stubbornness and sheer determination, to fight off Risen, protect his King and their men, and try and end the campaign that had already seen too much death. Alcohol was what forced his body to a screeching halt, that had her husband melding into her like the mead had burnt out his bones. 

‘Lightweight, ain’t he?’ Vaike commented with a grin but it lacked it’s usual taunting edge. It was sort of hollow and Sully couldn’t find it inside her to do much more than grunt. None of them had much energy or the heartiness. They would battle Grima much too soon. 

The lighting in the bar made Robin look even more sickly; seemed to emphasise the pale colour of what should be dark Plegian skin, and intensified the bags under his eyes. The taste of honey on her tongue was quick to sour at the sight of him, though his condition was hardly unknown to her it was always the quiet moments. The quiet moments that led her to the sinking feeling that she was about to lose something important to her. 

Someone taps her on the shoulder, but Sully had felt the presence before it had intruded into hers, and barely startled as she looked up from Robin’s stilted face and into her Captain’s. His expression was morphing out of the celebratory thing it had been before, where he’d been made to perform a speech like a talking monkey and prepare them for the battle tomorrow. Now it was more natural, more his face than the mask he’d had to put on for the others.

Chrom gazes at them solemnly, with grief adding to the lines under his dark eyes. He’d looked older since Lady Emmeryn had died. ‘Would you like a hand getting Robin back to your tent?’ Chrom asks. They’d been sat at the same table all night and Chrom had been keeping watch on them since Robin’s parentage had been revealed, and the tactician decided to deal with it by punishing himself and giving the cause more than he could give. 

(His reaction worried everyone around him, without saying that Sully and their kids-from-the-future (cuz why the heck not?) were terrified, but also Chrom, who thought’ve his tactician like a brother and had actualised that sentiment when he’d made Robin his chief advisor.)

Sully looks at the fresh drink she’d barely touched to the two empty tankards besides it. She shifts to the husband who was sinking into her, worn down and fading away and wished to stay. Here in this bar, where the locals were hosting them with the promise of reimbursement to be made in the future, and the dream of tomorrow. Here, with so many, Robin was still real. 

‘No,’ Sully finally replies as she pushes her tankard away and slowly shifts the arm Robin had fallen against, over his shoulders. She pushed their torsos together as her spare hand threads itself under Robin’s knees, collecting them, as she begins shifting his weight until she has him in her lap. 

Robin couldn’t hold his liquor to save his life. They’d all discovered that when Vaike had encouraged them to a night out back when Robin’d still been new and shiny. It’d been hilarious to start with, watching how out of it the usually composed man had become before it took a turn with Robin’s mood. He got depressed when he drank, did Robin. His fears and doubts all bubbled over and took hold of his mind, until all he could think of was all that he was and all that he did not know.

(Frederick was a lot less open with his disapproval of Robin after that. Robin hadn’t remembered a lick of what he’d said before they’d all gotten back to the safety of the castle, but he’d noticed the changing in attitudes towards him and had been confused by it though no one had the heart to mention how it’d happened.) 

Lifting her husband up into a bridal carry Robin had never offered, Sully herself stands. Her chair scraps against the wooden planks under it, and the room around them quietens as people glance over and notice. Robin would not be waking because of this, he was too exhausted but the concern for his mentality was real.

‘I can manage,’ Sully states to Chrom’s frown, to the stark concern writ across his face. The captain concedes and although she’d been the bride, at their wedding it had felt more like Chrom was giving Robin away, into her care than her father into his. Robin was her’s, her’s to look after and bully and tease and train with and read with and - he was her’s to carry to bed when he could no longer make the journey. He was her’s.

‘…take care,’ Chrom says, lightly touching Robin’s shoulder before he withdraws. ‘In the morning -’

‘We’ll be ready,’ Sully responds tightly with her lips pursued and although it wasn’t directed at Chrom - this tangled mess of feelings, he still flinched back. ‘Have a good night, Captain.’ He smiles as she turns away and she tries not to notice how grim it is. 

The journey back to their joint tent is somber. There weren’t many out with the looming threat hovering in the sky casting storms and shadows of death. Walking alone, it made her remember how she’d been heckled the first time she’d picked Robin up like this. It wasn’t considered the “done thing” but she hadn’t thought too much of it when she’d begun to carry her drunken then husband-to-be. Until, someone had called out to - criticise. 

Thing was, Sully was used to being considered unfeminine. She’d never quite hit the role the world wanted so badly to force her into and that had been doubly so when she’d started her training as a pegasus knight, thought _this ain’t for me_ , and transferred to the knights before getting snapped by Chrom who saw her less as a token, something to fill a quota and more as the fighter she was.

Sully hadn’t never expected her inability to fit in with how things were meant to go to rub off on Robin, though. Sure, she’d caught whispers of stuff, overheard some off colour jokes thrown Robin’s way but she’d been dealing with so much shite for so long that it wasn’t until then, that she truly noticed. 

Robin who never thought any less of her, never wanted her to change. Robin who could admire her strength without envy, who found her attractive despite the muscles and the scars.

Sully’s temper had roared at the things those men had said about Robin but she’d had precious cargo in her arms and she’d left them be. (She’d taken Robin back to his tent, tucked him in, and then hunted those dastards down.) Because - Robin had always given her the freedom to be whatever she wanted, even if it meant their relationship was unconventional. Robin allowed himself to take the more female roles, when Sully found she couldn’t fit herself in them and did it without complaint; didn’t care either way. 

It had been the small things, like allowing Sully to hold him instead of it being the other way round, or taking a more dominate position in bed. Robin didn’t fluster if she carried things for him like a lot of men did. Robin was fine, he was comfortable, had no bluster. It’d always been something that Sully loved about him and those men; they’d acted like it was something to be ashamed of. 

Looking back at it now, Sully found that it still made her angry but not in the way it once did. No, now her fury was directed at Validar, who taken Robin’s mind from him and made him act against the brother that he’d die for. Validar who’d plotted and betrayed his own blood; his only son. Validar, who’d been the instigator of these years of war, this heartache and the long campaigns that were slowly draining Ylisse dry of coin and abled bodies. 

It seemed…almost trivial now, the slight those men had made against their relationship. Because Robin had been damaged in ways Sully couldn’t fix, that she couldn’t make better. And soon - soon he might be gone entirely. 

Tiki had let it slip somewhere along their journey that Robin reminded her of a friend long lost, Mar-Mar and no one really got it until they finally had to ask who the “Mar-Mar” she was always speaking about was. Marth, The Hero King of legends old and that there had made sense, watching Robin labour for his duty, give and give because losing one man just wasn’t an acceptable loss to him. 

And that kind of mettle, that wasn’t the kind of man who’d know how to stop a threat permanently and not take the opportunity to keep people save. Chrom had attempted to talk to Robin, after they spoken to Naga and had gotten his tactician to agree to allow Chrom to take the final blow. 

But…

No. That wasn’t something that - Robin had agreed. Chrom would take the oversized dragon out. He’d agreed. And…

‘Soiree?’ Robin mumbles into her breast, wetting her shirt just as she is crossing the threshold towards their makeshift cot. Slivers of Plegian rubies glint out from thick colourless eyelashes. They are watching at her without focus.

‘Hold on, birdie,’ Sully says as she lowers him to the cot. The change in position as she helps him sit up confuses him but she needs to at least get his jacket and shoes off before they can sleep. ‘Just let me -’ She quickly pulls his boots off, and although manoeuvring his arms out of the sleeves is difficult, she manages. She even gets to his belt before he’s trying to get her attention.

Robin’s hands hands cover her’s just as she’s finished with the last buckle. ‘Lee?’ 

Sully sighs but she moves so that their fingers are interlinked. ‘Hey, you gonna let me undress so we can sleep?’ He squints at her and after a second or two, nods his agreement but doesn’t release her hands. ‘Robin?'

His grip on her tightens and his gaze gains some weight as he manages to meet her eyes. ‘You - you’re so beautiful,’ Robin states mournfully, a slur to his words that makes him difficult to understand. His accent, when sober - was barely noticeable but it got thicker when they allowed him to drink. ‘I wish I ‘adn’t married you.’ 

Sully’s stomach turned over, and the sudden coldness that tickled her senses were at odds with her environment. They’d been in Plegian territory for too long already but few of them had been able to acclimatise to the heat they suffered. Now, it was like she’d been transported back to Ferox in nothing but her skivvies. ‘…what?’

‘Codda done bettah.’ Robin’s voice warbles and his eyes are growing wet. The terror of discovering a buried fear disappears into the anxiety of Robin entering a low ebb. Sully had been hoping he’d sleep though this part. ‘You - I’m sorry. Lo siento.’ 

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Sully says as her own voice breaks before she clears her throat. ‘But be stupid. I asked you, didn’t I?’ She tries to be strong as she leans closer into his space. The more war he’d seen, the more people they’d lost and the more of his origin he discovered, the more fragile he became after he drank. It was life was realising all his fears for him. It was - damnit all if it was fair. 

Robin trembles and he curves inwards, as if the weight of the world is pressing against his shoulders alone and he can’t do nothing to stop his collapse. ‘Lo siento, Soiree. L-lo siento ¿Por qué estoy todavía aquí? Yo - yo hice esto. Todo esto es mi culpa. Toda esta muerte -’

( _“Why am I still here?I did this. All this death -”)_

‘H-Hey, now. R-Robin, I - I can’t…’ Sully hushes and hates herself just a bit that she’d never tried seriously to learn her husband’s mother tongue. She considered it, especially when they’d been at peace but, he’d spoken Ylissean and seemed contented enough with that. But - she should have because she didn’t understand now, though she knew, the words streaming out of his lips. ‘Robin, take a breath for me, okay?’ He does but it does not help and Sully doesn’t know what to do. 

‘Soiree -’ Her name, in his tongue. No translation needed but it is not the same. He fell in and out of Plegian, some times without even realising. Other times, he forget. Here and now, Sully just didn’t think he recognised the difference.

‘Birdie, I can’t - let’s just sleep, okay?’ Sully smiles but she doesn’t need to be able to see it to tell that it’s horrible. ‘You need to rest the big ole head of yours. And - stop, stop thinking stupid things. Cuz I married you, you lug and I don’t regret one bleeding day, alright? Tomorrow -’

Robin shakes his head. ‘Mañana. Mañana, lo haré, no quiero agobiarte, pero creo que ya lo sabes.’ 

_(“Morning. Tomorrow, I will, I do not want to overwhelm you, but I think you already know.”)_

Their daughters speak this language and Kjelle had been surprised when one morning she’d turned to Sully, muttering words of Plegian and found that that her mother could not understand her. Sully’s daughter with her strong Plegian descent and the darkness in her eyes that spoke of the difficulty that’d brought her even as she’d learnt their mouth for nothing if not pure spite. 

_‘They weren’t always…kind about it, despite you and Pa,’_ her eldest daughter had uttered. _‘Sometimes they’d talk behind his back too, like where he came from was somethin’ all that important. I guess…I guess I decided to give ‘em somethin’ worth talkin’ ‘bout. I’m not smart like Pa or Mor so…I didn’t pick it up as easy, ya know? Mor’s always been able to. I had to get Tharja’s help while she was…well. Yeah. Anyway.’_

She should have learnt. Her future self obviously had. What hadn’t she? 

‘Robin -’

It didn’t happen so much at the beginning, speaking Plegian, but he’d been - scared, or Sully thinks he had been. He instinctively knew to be intimidated in Ylisse, hadn’t been able to fully relax and weren’t that just sick? That the Blood Wars ran so deep that even a Plegian with amnesia couldn’t quite forget. That distrust of his surroundings had faded with time and he grew to trust them. That was faded now and that helped Robin feel more secure to slip but this slip felt like a crash.

Robin’s grip on her hands tightens but it isn’t even half of his proper strength. ‘Mañana voy a matarlo.’

_(“Tomorrow I’m going to kill him.”)_

‘…I…’ Sully hesitates because his mind isn’t properly comprehending her and this sounds important. She heaves a breath and pulls herself away. She’s quick about toeing off her shoes andthrowing off her clothes every which way. She slides up behind him, counting her luck that Robin doesn’t fight her when she wraps an arm around his stomach and guides him to lay against her. 

Sully curls against him, desperate to eliminate the space between them. ‘We can talk when you’ve slept some of this off, okay? Tomorrow, once it’s all over.’ 

‘Mañana. Tengo que ser yo.’ 

_(“Tomorrow, it has to be me.”)_

Sully swallows as her stomach continues to twist. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers into his hair. 

‘Lo siento,’ Robin returns, voice rough and low. 

_(“I’m sorry.”)_

‘I -’

‘Yo -’

_(“I.”)_

‘Tomorrow -’ Sully tries to restart, because she’s grabbling for something to say but nothing is right. The words aren’t coming, or maybe she knows that if she opens her mouth and lets what wants to come out free, that she’ll hear something she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

‘Mañana -

_(“Tomorrow -”)_

‘I’m sorry,’ Sully repeats. 

‘Lo siento.’ 

_(“I’m Sorry.”)_

**Author's Note:**

> Funny, I've never married Sully but this happened. I've got so many ideas for Awakening pairings...my goal is to eventually do them all muwhahahaha...(Yes, my sanity is waning.)


End file.
